The next morning, Sasha walked into the common room and knew instantly something was wrong.
Contestants gathered on the velvet couches, buzzing with whispers. Camera operators circled like sharks. On the coffee table lay a stack of glossy envelopes—the kind reality shows used for "twists."
The director, grinning like a puppeteer, clapped his hands. "Good morning, lovers! Today we're shaking things up. For your next date challenge, we've paired you off…"
The room crackled with anticipation.
Sasha already knew. She didn't need the envelope, the announcement, or the dramatic pause. She knew.
"…and our first couple: Ethan and Sasha."
Gasps rippled through the cast. A few girls exchanged smug looks. Someone actually whistled.
Sasha forced a smile so brittle it could shatter. Ethan, sitting across the room, leaned back on the couch with an expression carved from stone.
The director continued, oblivious to the tension thickening the air. "You'll be filming at an amusement park—classic date material! Cotton candy, roller coasters, maybe even a romantic Ferris wheel kiss. Make it count."
The contestants cheered. Sasha wanted to scream.
The amusement park smelled like sugar and grease, bright with neon rides and laughter. Children darted between their parents' legs, unaware that just yards away, two people with too much history were being forced to hold hands for the cameras.
Sasha walked beside Ethan, her heels clicking against the pavement, the production crew trailing discreetly behind. The cameras were already rolling.
"Smile," a PA hissed from the sidelines.
Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets. "So," he muttered without looking at her, "do we play along?"
Sasha kept her lips curved upward. "We don't have a choice."
They rode bumper cars, posed with cotton candy, and screamed their way through a roller coaster loop. Every second, Sasha played the role: laughing too loudly, leaning too close, pretending the man beside her wasn't the same one she had once kissed goodnight a hundred times.
But when the Ferris wheel lifted them high above the park, the crew's shouts fading beneath the mechanical creak, the act cracked.
It was just the two of them. No one else.
Ethan stared out at the city lights, jaw tight. "Tell me something, Sasha. When you left… did it mean that little to you?"
Her breath caught. The cameras were still there, a lens trained on their capsule, but suddenly it didn't matter.
"Ethan—" she began.
"Don't," he cut her off, finally turning to meet her eyes. "Don't feed me another line. I've had three years to replay that silence. What I want now is the truth."
The Ferris wheel creaked higher, leaving Sasha suspended between the glittering lights of the park and the weight of the past.
And for the first time since she signed on to the show, she didn't know which role to play.